[Kransha]

Gráthgrob was dead, or rather; he had disappeared into the fray, and came out a pile of orc body parts thanks to an ill-aimed troll club. Bâzzog was now doubly injured, with two arrows in him as he charged. He’d fallen, but persevered as a proper; brute of an orc ought to, and continued to saunter, at a less sprightly pace, forward, towards the thinly-spread ranks of the enemy. He was lumbering about, almost drunkenly, with a disorderly entourage bumbling over the earth in front of and behind him. He managed to yank out one of the two offending arrows, but got no farther than that before he was again engaged, this time by a She-elf from afar. In the midst of the muddle of battle, Bâzzog was lost to the orcs, assimilated onto the other side of the field. Many continued to doggedly believe that he would be victorious, but he was too far from his own troops, and was already gravely wounded. He was no match for Elf-kind, not that day. So, it was not a great surprise to anyone when his severed head, mouth hanging limply open and his blackened tongue lolling out, was discovered in a shallow ditch later.

From that point forward, Bâzzog’s personal battles were his own business. Kransha, as usual, was scoping out the field, in disarray, searching for a target, a mark, or anything he could shoot. With both Gráthgrob and Búbkûr dead, the orcs had become confused over time, and some were routing, but the heavy numbers involved were still able to overwhelm the opponents, despite all their hacking and slashing and erroneous combat techniques. Kransha himself, one eye pursed and the other squinting delicately, meandered in a careless fashion, his fingers tightly constricting around the cold wood of his bow and the bolt fitted to it. He tried to hone in on an adequate target, but the plane as it sloped into the river was clouded with battle’s mists. He had managed to salvage a bow from the last skirmish, though it was not as proficient as his last, and he was not yet accustomed to it. He would have to find a close target, one who was not moving too fast, too nimbly, or too erratically. At long last, he found one.

The gangly orc recognized this one. It was the leader, probably, who he’d put an arrow into at the Battle of the Stone Trolls. He could only reckon that the man he saw was the leader, out of his complex figuring over the length of several minor skirmishes. The fellow had a commanding air in him, not one of a grand general, but of a captain of men all the same, and struck Kransha as the sort of man who might lead an expedition of sorts. Squinting further, Kransha leveled the jagged shaft balanced on his hand and nocked to the bow at the unnamed man, searching for precision and the perfect moment, waiting with distinguishable orcish patience for him to be completely vulnerable. Suddenly, the man’s eyes fell upon him, and widened momentarily as he continued to rage through orcish lines. Realizing that he had no time to spare for aim or concentration, Kransha loosed the bolt from his bow. It soared, like an aimless shaft of light, or dark, over orc heads and at the man. But, the enemy leader was quicker than Kransha had assumed, and Kransha’s aim with the new bow was flawed. The shaft nearly fell short, and the man simply had to maneuver lithely to his side and break into a mad dash towards the opposing orc. Kransha now knew he could not fire again, for the time it would take for such a motion could dearly cost him. Somewhat dejected, his dropped his empty bow to the ground and ripped out his two red-stained blades, not hesitating to shoot off from the ground in a head-on sprint.

He charged, and the two collided at a central point between them, frantically flurrying their blades. The force of the first collision threw both combatants back, and they staggered for a fleeting second, before Kransha lunged. As he fell on his prey, the man dodged again, swinging his leg and shoulder about to the side so that the orc pouncing fell instead upon rocky ground. As quickly as his skeletal pair of legs could carry him, Kransha flung himself back as the man’s sword pierced the earth three times in succession, drawing nearer to him each time, but never reaching the orc form, since he leapt out of the sword’s stinging path each time. After the third mighty swing, Kransha stabbed forward, but his blade was knocked aside and retaliated to with another series of flourishing arcs by the enemy sword, one of which cut a swath through Kransha’s shoulder. The orc grunted, a bubble of bracken blood bursting from his lips as thin rivers of reddish-black welled up and ran down over the orc’s chest. Only annoyed, Kransha picked up the pace, his efficient movements turning to a hammering rain of heavy bashes dealt onto the man. The enemy parried, but could not dodge around the assailing orcs, and was forced to take each maneuver on the chin, almost literally. He backed up, towards the river’s immediate banks and past orc, man, and elf alike as they tore about the field.

The battle between the two quickly grew harsher, and both poured a greater well of their energy into it, each sustaining wounds that grew heavier in weight and number as time passed. Kransha was stabbed twice in one arm, and was dealt a great wound to his hip. The muscle burst and blood coursed over his flesh and leg, causing his steady, swift movements to become ragged and disconnected as it became harder for him to stand. One of his arms swung, more disjointed, and his grip on that arm’s weapon was loosened by a foul mixture of sweat that secreted his rough palm and warm blood that now covered his hand. The orc was the very model of bloodshed, a portrait of battle’s wrath as he became himself more erratic and less connected with his usual profound tactics. The man, on the other hand, was bashed about himself a great deal. Bruises and stab wounds soon found a home on him, the brunt of a punch from Kransha’s steely hilt gave the man a great wound on his forehead, which pulsed with painful energies and caused the man to slow his pace as well, his senses swimming and his agility dulling. Still, though, both warriors were equal in their combat.

That situation was abruptly ended when Kransha got the upper hand. One arm’s limpness could be used to an advantageous end, as he discovered. Numbness has distilled in his limb, but it was now unfeeling, and so he had leeway to flail it madly, without fearing for his arm’s safety. Several times, the arm itself struck the man, dealing him bruises, but also several times did the blade, practically hanging from the arm’s stiff fingers, slash across the man’s chest, drawing more thick blood. With a groan of stifled pain, the man collapsed backward; onto the hard ground, clutching at his wounds were they lay and his sword fell ignobly to his side. Kransha, not even able to comprehend the fact that he might, in truth, win, bore up both his blades into his hands, aiming down at the man, and plunged them down, ready to impale the fallen figure and nail him to the ground. Both of his weapons fell simultaneously, shooting downward, but the flesh they yearned for was not found.

The man beneath him, ignoring his wounds, sprung upon his legs and rolled again, pulling himself away from Kransha’s falling weapons. Just as they had before, the pair of long knives dug into the dirt instead of into man-flesh. Kransha did not notice until he heard a vague windy whistling from the patch of earth to his side, letting his grip on both weapons slip away, and his dangling arms, numb and useless through and through, fall to his side. He turned, half in awe, half in confusion, and half in anger, to see the man swinging his sword in a huge arc. The blade flew like a warm summer gust of air on a cold day, and then rested, hovering in mid-air, opposite of where it had begun.

At first, both warriors were breathing hard, standing stock still in their places. A second after that, Kransha’s chest stopped heaving, and then drifted away from the point beneath it. Slowly, the orcs upper half fell away, and all of Kransha above the torso clattered noisily onto the ground. After the passing of a moment, his two legs had crumbled in the opposite direction. The man did not linger over his kill, and quickly leapt over the two halves of the orcish whole, not tarrying to aid those who followed him...

The orcs were now in full disarray...